epicdragoncomethfandomcom-20200213-history
So it begins...
The world of Annor is dying and this is a tale of its last days. Our story begins in a little place called '''Utesheniye', nestled in one of countless vales that lie east of the immense Earth Crown mountains. Here, at the foot of these primeval massifs that scrape the heavens, is a land of endless conifer forests and countless uncharted rivers and streams. For an Age and more, these lands to the east of the mountains were home to innumerable petty realms trapped in endless internecine wars: squabbling and raiding, singing and drinking. The teller of tales had a special place back then: the skomorokhi were sacrosanct and welcome at every hearth. And what tales they told! To east, they sang, the forest bulwark and its riverine ways rolled on forever, or at least until you reached the eastern shore of Asuria and the Grey Sea. The dells were rich with deer, boar, bear, moose, aurochs, and wolf. North, the forests eventually thinned and one reached the forest-steppe, a band of plain and pasture interspersed with wooded valleys. It was there, on the edge of the steppe, that rose the golden walls and alabaster towers of Zorya, the Dreaming Lady of old: scene of a thousand skomorokhi tales. Father Svarog watched down on his people in those days, gave the priests the fire magic and the Voices of Command. Perun taught us war and axe-craft. Mother Mati blessed our hearths and healed our wounds. North of the forest-steppe lay the true steppe. That vast prairie was a nomad road: pasture and grassland stretching from the Earth Crown towards the east for thousands of miles into the vast homeland of the Tengu horselords. It was across the steppe that the horselords came, ages past, pillaging at first, then trading and settling, bringing the worship of bear and wolf and teaching us the Black Arts of the Poisoner and much else besides. They say the steppe runs north to very shores of the Glittering Sea, from whence the treasure-laden ships of old sailed to Thune. But who knows now if Thune exists, in this cursed Age. And what of the south and west? To the south, the Earth Crown rises impossibly higher, to heights where the air is so thin that only giants can survive. Down near the base of the world the forests grow sparse and the taiga begins. It is a harsh and windswept place, thinly forested with conifers and evergreens: a land where only the strong survive. From there came the first Palar, the crystal-skinned elves, born in ice and tempered by the Dragon Lights that glow across their night skies. Farther south, who knows? Endless ice. But even to there, said the skomorokhi, the Earth Crown mountains extend! To the west lies the impassable Crown. Well, almost impassible. There were passes of old with names from legend: Scarsbridge and Garytz of the Storm King, Tobolsk and Mournspire. If they still exist, they are surely guarded now or worse...'' Were that it could still be so, the way it was... but for the '''Rivening': the cursed day when the Fademen came. The day the world ended. What must that day have been like for peoples who did not know the savage heel of the Fademen? Who can imagine a world without the Khin-Dai Legates, without astiraxes? A world where our gods still live.'' --- Before the Rivening, Asuria was home to dozens of races and had seen Ages come and go, empires rise and fall. All this ended a little over a hundred years ago when a race of invaders from beyond the Fade sundered the Veil and entered the world in force. Throughout the three continents, the Fademen -as they came to be called- arrived. Armadas of ebon-hulled ships powered by energies from beyond the Veil swept over the skies of Annor, crackling with unknown power, accompanied by creatures Annor had never known: dragons. They came to conquer and they did. They call themselves the Khin-Dai, the Elect in their tongue. The Khin-Dai are tall, gaunt humanoids who live to conquer: to dominate or kill is their Way. They are ruled by an immortal Queen who commands from beyond the Veil itself. Everywhere, they subjugated and enslaved. Scores of Annorian armies were broken. Far-reaching magics were unleashed as the desperate Annorian peoples allied together. On Asuria, entire sections of the steppe became a blasted wasteland. Rivers boiled and whole cities razed to ruin. One by one, nations and cities, kings and realms, fell to the Khin-Dai. But that was the beginning of the horror that befell the world. It was soon found that whatever damage had been done to the Fade by the Khin-Dai had apparently severed the connection to the gods. Prayers have gone unanswered ever since. With the Veil ruined, the dead could not travel to their rest and a new horror emerged: the koschei, the Undying. The people of Annor quickly learned a new motto: what was living and is not burnt, returns. Today, this sundered world lives under the boot of the Khin-Dai. Reading is forbidden, as is any use of magic. Everywhere, Kin-Dai legates - essentially dark priests wizard-hunters - travel with strange, wolf-like familiars called astiraxes. An astirax can smell magic leagues away, making open spell casting almost impossible in populated areas. Economies are local and sustenance level, with barter as the main means of getting anything done. Ruins dot the landscape, grim reminders of other times. There is no clerical magic, with two exceptions: the Khin-Dai, who can call upon the patronage of their dread queen and the volkhvy (pronounced volk-hoovy), practitioners of a forbidden magic which draws on the land. Arcane magic still exists, both learned and innate, but its use is likewise forbidden to non-Khin-Dai or their minions. And everywhere, the Khin-Dai build dark obsidian temples, called fos gorroom in their tongue, meaning Black Mirrors, for a purpose no one understands. Why are they here? After a century, no one knows. The world today is broken and much knowledge has been lost. Everywhere the world dies, bleeding out slowly. Everywhere, people live in fear and oppression, ruled by ignorance and hate. Yet sparks of the old world still smolder, here and there. In small villages, where the old ways are secretly remembered. In hidden dells, where vollhvy whisper sacred words of power. In remote places of power, where a lingering memory of the old ways and the last Age are brunt into the landscape. In lost items of legend, forgotten in ancient treasure hoards. And in the hearts of those who refuse to bow to the darkness and give in to despair.